As I mentioned in my previous post, aside from presenting at Wikimania 2014 about various collaborations between the Wikimedia and OpenStreetMap communities, I was also able to attend the London celebration of OpenStreetMap’s 10th anniversary. This was held in traditional fashion in an English pub. In the Philippines, social meetups are often held in American-style cafes like Starbucks; but in the United Kingdom, they are held in pubs. The London OSM community have regular fortnightly meetups usually held in pubs, and the 10th anniversary celebration was no different. So even though I’m not big on alcohol, I was pretty excited to go to a pub and meet like-minded map geeks.

For the anniversary party, the chosen pub was The Artillery Arms, a cozy corner establishment along Bunhill Row selected for its proximity to the Wikimania 2014 venue. So after the conference sessions were done for the day and I have had a light dinner, I, Tim, and a few other OSM people who attended Wikimania trooped north a few blocks to the pub where we were greeted with a noisy group of people from both the OSM and Wikimedia communities.

I was quite surprised to see Frederik Ramm from the German OSM community fly in to attend the festivities. I was also able to meet Grant Slater, one of the sysads that help maintain the OSM servers. Frederik and Grant were on a table conversing with Luis Villa, the Deputy General Counsel of the Wikimedia Foundation, and Katie, my Wikimania-OSM buddy. Seeing Luis at the pub and having an interest in OSM was surprising for me, but it turned out that Luis participated in the creation of the Open Database License, of which OpenStreetMap was the impetus. Joel Aldor, a fellow Wikimedia Philippines member, also attended the party and he talked with some people there about the plan to eventually incorporate OpenStreetMap into the Philippine Cultural Heritage Mapping project that Wikimedia Philippines is doing.

L-R, T-B:1.The Artillery Arms was where the London OSM 10th Birthday party was held. 2. Another view of The Artillery Arms. 3. OpenStreetMappers and Wikimedians talking about maps over pints of ale and beer. 4. Event attendees occupied most of the tables on the pub’s ground floor. 5. The Artillery Arms had a fine selection of ales for sale. 6. I had a large glass of Fuller’s London Pride as my celebratory drink.

I couldn’t visit an English pub and not have something to drink, so I ordered a pint of London Pride, the premiere brew of Fuller’s. As I’ve said, I don’t drink much so I couldn’t say if the ale was good or not, but it went down well and I got a nice little buzz when I finished it over geeky map discussions with Katie and Tim. I forgot what we talked about but I think it involved Wikidata, which Katie is working on, and the Wikimedia OSM tile servers, which Tim was helping with.

And that was how I capped off my celebration OpenStreetMap’s 10th anniversary: with a traditional pub meetup/party in London, the birthplace of OSM.

Of course being a London event, Harry has his own writeup of the anniversary festivities. Nice to finally meet you, Harry!